Thomas Devine

professor, materials science and engineering

Thomas M. Devine is a professor of materials science and engineering. His research focuses on aspects of materials science that are related to energy conversion, storage and transmission.
Together with his graduate students, he is currently investigating: the corrosion and cracking of materials employed in cooling systems of commercial nuclear power plants; the protection against corrosion of wellheads and pipes extracting subsurface oil and natural gas; the mechanisms of materials' degradation in oil refineries; the aging of polymeric electrical insulation in high voltage, underground electrical transmission and distribution lines; and the development of nano-plasmonic structures for conversion of solar to electrical energy.
Devine served as chair of his department from 1996 to 2002. He offers undergraduate and graduate courses on corrosion science and engineering, and lower-division courses on the introduction to materials science and engineering, and introduction to batteries and fuel cells.
Devine came to Berkeley in 1985 from General Electric's Corporate Research and Development Center, were he was a staff scientist for 11 years.